


Well If You Wanted Honesty...

by Killedbycroc



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-13
Updated: 2012-05-13
Packaged: 2017-11-05 07:37:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Killedbycroc/pseuds/Killedbycroc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Glancing at the timetable, I noticed that I had missed my first lesson, so decided that it was better now than never to head into the horror of my first day as an English person in an American high school. Everywhere I looked, there was bitchiness, awkward stares, and more bitchiness. This was going to be fun, I quietly sighed to myself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**_ Jodie’s POV _ **

  Taking two deep breaths, I desperately tried to calm myself down. It’s okay, I told myself, nobody knows who you are here, and it’s not like they’re going to be that bothered – it’s the beginning of a new school year for everyone else too. Nervously moving out of the shadow from under the tree, I headed up the stairs, along with all the other lost and scared freshmen (the difference being that I was in junior year), and made my way towards the school office to collect my timetable.

  “Next,” the already-bored receptionist called, and it was finally my turn after a fifteen minute wait.

  “Um, I need to get a timetable...” But before I was able to finish my sentence, a form and pen were shoved in my direction.

  “Fill this out and I’ll give you a timetable. Next!” Not knowing what else to do, I sat back down and filled out the form as slowly as possible, hoping that I’d be able to waste the whole day. Unfortunately, the whole thing only took me five minutes, so I begrudgingly handed the form in, making the receptionist sigh as she got up and looked in a filing cabinet, eventually producing two pieces of paper.

  “This one’s your timetable, and this is your late slip,” she drawled in a bored tone. “There’s a map of the school on the back of the timetable. NEXT!”

  Glancing at the timetable, I noticed that I had missed my first lesson (which was further backed up by the fact that everyone was converging into the corridors, rushing off to their next room), so decided that it was better now than never to head into the horror of my first day as an English person in an American high school. Everywhere I looked, there was bitchiness, awkward stares, and more bitchiness. This was going to be fun, I quietly sighed to myself.

  My first (well, technically second) lesson was biology, so that helped to soothe my nerves a little bit, but they all returned in a flash once I stepped inside the classroom and saw that everyone was standing around talking; nobody so much as threw a glance my way. Placing myself on the desk closest to the door, it was a few minutes before the teacher entered the room, looking more than a little flushed. Everyone settled down, still not paying attention to me – well, until I had to answer my name (many whispers of ‘ohmigod she’s British’ started circulating. I didn’t know Americans were really obsessed with that sort of thing), but even then it wasn’t that big of a deal.

  Quietly I got on with my work, having had spent most of my summer reading science books, and I’d finally decided that maybe school over here wasn’t going to be so bad, as long as nobody tried to bug me. That was something which didn’t last very long, however, as the teacher suddenly declared to share our answers with the person sat behind us – seeing as I was at the front of the row, I thought I could get away with just checking my answers in the back of the book, but that was soon put to a stop. “Why aren’t you turning round?” I jumped as the voice was so close to my ear. “You can’t just learn everything from a book, so turn around and discuss your answers with Mikey.” His voice at the end turned almost into a snarl, so I was too scared not to turn round.

  The guy sat behind me, Mikey, had blonde hair that hung down and seemingly stuck to his face, and big glasses that made him look exactly like the stereotypical nerd – I counted my blessings that he hadn’t turned out to be a douche-bag. “Hey,” he faintly murmured, trying to make as little eye contact with me as possible. He’s more like me than anyone else I’ve ever seen, I thought to myself; conversation was out of the window then.

  “Hi.” After that, we didn’t say anything, instead each of us silently checking our answers in the textbook (the teacher didn’t bother walking round anymore, deciding to stay seated at his desk). It was definitely awkward, but I preferred this over having some stupid blonde-ass bimbo asking me if I always drink tea at precisely three in the afternoon every day (if they did, I had the perfect comeback up my sleeve).

  Once every answer was checked, I began to turn back to my own desk, knowing that there were only a couple of minutes left to the lesson. “H-hey,” I heard Mikey awkwardly stutter; turning back around to face him, I waited for him to continue speaking. “Um...” But before he had chance to even attempt to get the words out of his mouth, the bell rang, and everyone began furiously packing up and rushing out the door. Unsure of what else to do, I joined them, leaving Mikey behind without so much as a second glance in his direction.

 

  The next few lessons dragged, seeing as by that time word had spread about me, and all I got to hear were questions about what was England like and why had I moved here; by the time lunch arrived, I was completely sick of it all, and in desperate need of an escape. Not having anywhere else to go (and also stealing the idea from many different stories I had read during the summer), I went and sat outside beneath a large tree where very few people were around – luckily, the weather was still dry for September. Sheepishly getting my lunch out of my bag, I ate silently, with even my thoughts deciding to desert me. Each mouthful of food made me feel sadder, made me realise that there was practically zero chance of me making any friends here with my awkward social skills. Suddenly I wasn’t that hungry anymore.

  Placing the rest of my lunch carefully by the side of me, I got out a random notebook and started to doodle and write down lines for poems that would never get finished or see the light of day again. It became so relaxing that I didn’t notice the ominous shadow lurking above me until the person spoke. “Hey there.” I jumped half a mile out of my skin this time, before craning my neck up to see that it was Mikey stood in front of me.

  “Hi,” I replied back, though slightly confused – wasn’t this the guy who barely spoke two words to me in biology? What was he doing seeking me out?

  “Can I...?” He nervously glanced to the side of me, and I nodded, assuming he wanted to sit down by me. As he tentatively sat beside me, I continued to get lost in my own little world. “That’s cool,” he commented as he pointed towards some random scrawling I had done many moons ago.

  “Thanks,” I pretty much mouthed back to him, before continuing in my notebook. With every stroke of the pen, I could feel the awkwardness rising between both of us, until it got to a point where I could no longer stand it. “Where’s everyone else that you hang out with?”

  Mikey’s gaze shifted nervously to the ground. “I don’t really have anyone else to talk to at school. I mean, there’s my brother and all, but I don’t want to feel like I’m bugging him, you know? Plus he spends most of his time in detention, so it’s not like I could see him if I wanted to,” he said, adding an uneasy laugh at the end.

  “Oh.” It was almost silent, the noise that came from my mouth – I now understood why he barely said a word to me in biology. “Why did you come and sit by me, though?”

  “Because every time there’s a new kid here, by the end of third period they’ve already been accepted into a group, and seeing you sat here, I thought…”

  “…You thought I was a completely anti-social person who hates people?” I joked, raising my eyebrows comically at him.

  “Um, no,” he replied, almost bewildered. “I just thought you looked a little lonely. That’s why in biology I gonna ask if you wanted to eat lunch with me.”

  The only thing I could feel for Mikey right then was complete and utter sorrow; I knew I couldn’t show him that though. “…I like eating lunch.” Fortunately, this produced a small smile on his face, and suddenly I felt more relaxed and a lot happier.

  At that exact moment, hoards of students began descending on the school, signalling it was time for another two and a half hours of misery. At least it didn’t all turn out as bad as I expected, I cheerfully thought to myself.


	2. Chapter 2

**_ Aimee’s POV _ **

  Once again, this had all been Frank’s fault, and because of it, this time, I had landed head-first into detention. Of course, Frank was used to this by now, and was comfortably lounging, slumped in his chair with his feet on the desk in front of him (he was able to do this because he was the only person I knew who was shorter than me). I envied his laid-back attitude sometimes, but not when I got the blame because of it.

  “Lighten up, Aimee,” he whispered across to me while whatever teacher was meant to be there was otherwise distracted. “It’s one lunchtime away from your precious library.”

  “Well there wasn’t any reason for getting me involved in that stupid prank against your band...”

  “Hey, do not speak of those traitors _ever_ again.”

  “Who, Pencey Prep?” He gave me the most evil stare and turned back to face the front, clearly annoyed by my sarcastic comments. A minute passed, and still Frank refused to look at me. “Oh come on, it was a stupid joke about your dogs.”

  That caused him to turn around, eyes glaring with all their intensity at me. “That _joke_ was not funny, and they know it. I’ll kill them if it’s the last thing I do to those sons-of-bitches...”

  “Iero! That’ll be an extra two days detention for talking and swearing.”

  “Since when has that been swearing, you dinosaur?” he muttered, barely loud enough for me to hear; the teacher briefly glanced at us, obviously being too far away to catch drift of what was said.

  “Oh Frank you twat,” I said under my breath, “when will you ever learn?”

 

  After my hour of boredom was over, I had the pleasure of being sat next to the utter idiot for an hour and a half – as I walked into the classroom and took a seat at the only available double desk, I was left to wonder who would be in a worse mood that lesson, thought that wasn’t hard to work out as Frank came bouncing in with a ridiculous grin spread across his face. “Okay,” I sighed, unable to believe why I didn’t expect better from him by now, “what idiotic thing have you done this time?”

  Instantaneously, a look of hurt washed across him. “Why do you think that? I’m upset that you think that of me, Aimee. Very upset.”

  It took a lot of patience to deal with him at times, and I normally wondered why I even bothered. “Fine then,” I exclaimed, sighing heavily, “what are you so giddily happy about, lil’ Frankie?” Once again, I received the death glare from him, but if anyone else had said it to him, he’d be trying to smash their face into the floor (trust me, I’ve seen it happen a couple of times before).

  “Oh ha ha, you’re so funny,” he sighed sarcastically, though I could tell he was attempting to keep that oh-so-familiar smile off of his face. “Anyway, look at this!” Before I had chance to react, he’d shoved his phone so far into my face that it was impossible for me to tell what was on the screen.

  “Hey, gimme some space to see, will ya?” Moving the phone away, I eventually managed to adjust my eyes enough to see that there was a dog on the screen. “Um... are you stalking random dogs now or something?” I prepared myself for what was about to come, knowing that when Frank started talking about dogs, he wouldn’t shut up until you made him.

  “No, my mom just picked him up from the pound. Don’t you think he’s cute? He’s a bulldog, he’d only been in the pound for three weeks. Think I might call him Professor something... Hey, you’re good with names, help me come up with something.”

  “...I like chickens.” Giving me a bemused look, the teacher walked in, and we all sat down and shut up.

  All the way through English, I could feel Frank anxiously gazing at me, wanting to talk more and more about his new dog, but I had to concentrate, seeing as it was my least favourite subject and I knew I had very little chance in passing. “Hey.” I tried to ignore him by channelling all of my work into my latest failed attempt of an essay. “Hey, Aimee.” Yet again, I paid no attention to Frank, hoping that he’d get the hint to shut up.

  Obviously he didn’t, as he threw a scrunched-up piece of paper right at my face. “What do you want?” I hissed at him, unable to ignore him any longer.

  “So I was thinking either Professor Rudolph or Professor Jewel... What’s that look for?”

  “It’s your dog, _you_ think of the name – I’ve got work to get on with.” Facing my failed essay again, I heard him admit defeat as he sighed and turned away from me.

  “Fine, but don’t get jealous when I think of the most awesome name ever.” I rolled my eyes at him, but all Frank did was laugh as loud as possible, which resulted in us receiving some strange stares from everyone else in class. Screw ‘em anyway, they were the weird ones for not having a sense of humour.

 

  That disaster of a lesson came to an end sometime in the following century, which meant that there was only an hour left until sweet freedom. Even though we had lessons nowhere near each other, Frank walked with me so he could continue to bug me during every waking second that he saw me. Honestly, I _really_ didn’t know what made me be friends with this guy in the first place. “But don’t you think he’s cute, Aimee? I know he’ll love you as soon as he sees you. Yeah, he definitely looks like a Professor...”

  Before he could continue, however, his shoulder was bashed viciously, and without any other warning, Frank ended up shoved up against the lockers behind him, his face only inches away from some random senior’s. “Well, if it isn’t the puppy boy. Tell me dog breath, you get anymore mutts to mess around with, seeing as you can’t get a girlfriend?” A look of confusion spread across both mine and Frank’s faces. “Your ‘chums’ told me about it,” he sneered brutally at both of us, “you sick creature.”

  “Hey,” I butted in, “do you really believe a rumour as stupid as that?”

  Looking Frank up and down, he snorted. “Wimpy here seems that desperate.” Deciding he was bored, the senior let go of Frank and walked the opposite way down the hall, but not before he spat on the both of us. “Dirty scum, the lot of you freaks.”

  Making sure he was out of earshot, Frank began to apologise. “I’m so sorry Aimee, I never meant to get you dragged into this...”

  “Don’t worry about it, seriously,” I interrupted him, “none of this is your fault.” He offered me a brief, and clearly fake, smile before heading off in the opposite direction. It was obvious to say that it was definitely annoying him, but he certainly wasn’t going to share it with me anytime soon. I wish he’d open up to me – bottling everything up was just going to make the whole situation ten times worse.

 

  As school came to a disappointing end on the first day, instead of following everyone else and heading home to do absolutely nothing for an evening, I made a beeline straight for the library, the one place where it was guaranteed there would be no idiots or people that I wanted to kill – the only downside was that I couldn’t listen to my music (seriously, it was _that_ quiet all the time), but beggars can’t be choosers, and so I sat at a table in the corner, as far away from every other person in there as possible. Once I was certain that no-one was paying any attention to me, I prised open my bag and pulled out a stack of comics that I had picked up this morning. Strange to say, I had missed being able to read in complete silence over the holidays.

  Flicking through the first couple of pages of adverts, I settled in, wishing that there was some way for me to have a snack to go along with this, preferably Oreos. “This is definitely the life,” I murmured to myself. It was just so easy for me to lose myself in another world sometimes, and today was no exception; I was so engrossed that I nearly didn’t realise when someone was standing behind me, and relatively closely too. Noticing for the first time, I jumped, having to accept that my oasis of peace had been disturbed, for today at least.

  “Um, sorry, I didn’t mean to...” The person quickly apologised. I was ready to tell them that it didn’t matter in the slightly annoyed tone I had prepared, but when I turned round to look at them, my mouth dropped open, and I’m pretty sure that I stopped breathing temporarily, for standing in front of me was Mikey Way, one of the most adorkable people on the planet. To be honest, I don’t think he knew I existed, seeing as he was a year above me and all, but everywhere I looked or went, he seemed to be there, almost like _he_ was anticipating _my_ arrival... “Oh, there you are Jodie.” And then my fantasy daydream world came crashing down around me like a ton of bricks – he had a girlfriend. Of course he did, I told myself dejectedly, did you really expect someone like _him_ to be available to _you_ , the biggest nerd in the school?

  From behind one of the many bookcases appeared a girl with a slight purple tinge to her hair, who then scampered over to Mikey, but she made sure not to stand too close to him. “Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked quietly.

  “No,” he sighed, disheartened. “I’ll have to come back tomorrow.” I was starting to feel awkward, just sat there and not knowing whether I was part of this conversation or not. “Oh,” he stuttered as he turned back to me, “when did you get that issue?”

  “Uh, about five days ago.” Oh my God, I could hardly contain my excitement over the fact that Mikey Way was talking to me, like a proper conversation and everything.

  “Cool. I’ll have to go pick up a copy sometime soon.” And then he gave me the tiniest, sweetest smile that completely melted my insides. “Jodie, do you like comics?”

  “Um, I prefer anime...” I was still too wrapped up in my dream world to take the slightest bit of notice to what was happening right in front of me. “I’ve gotta get home now. I’ll see you later Mikey.” Hurriedly walking away, my focus once again turned back to Mikey.

  “So, you like comics?”

  “Yeah, been a fan of them since I was a kid.” He briefly paused, giving me just enough time to start breathing again. “Hey, haven’t I seen you around before? You look kind of familiar...”

  “I-I’m not sure.” As soon as he said that, I couldn’t concentrate anymore, and I knew I had to get out of there before I did something stupid. “Um, I have to go, cus my sister will be waiting for me, and she’s a danger to everyone on her own.” Shoving my comic into my bag, I got out of there as fast as I possibly could, and only stopped when I had gotten around the corner. You fool, I thought to myself, after a year of secretly crushing on him, I finally get to talk to him and that’s all you have to say? You really are stupider than I thought.


	3. Chapter 3

**_ Mikey’s POV _ **

  The first day back at high school had pretty much been as uneventful as I had anticipated it to be; it was always boring when you didn’t really have anyone to catch up with. Of course, there had been that new girl, Jodie, and she seemed pretty cool, but I had learnt from previous experience not to get my hopes up. Then there had been that weird incident in the library with the girl who had the comic...

  “Hey, can I pay for this please?” The random customer standing before me waved whatever item they were holding in my face.

  “Yeah, sorry,” I mumbled subconsciously back to them – I tended to let my thoughts distract me a lot whilst at work. Quite a long queue had built up during that time, and I knew it would take at least five minutes to get through everyone. Customer interaction was definitely my least favourite part of the job, but it was kind of hard to avoid when you worked as a cashier.

  After a whole load more customers and me not really paying attention to any of them, it was time to leave, to spend yet another evening at home doing absolutely nothing. What a fucking great life I had. Heading out the doors as slowly as I could manage, I heard a voice call out after me. “Hey, you embarrassed to be seen with me or something?” Turning round, I saw my brother, Gerard, running full pelt towards me, seemingly unable to stop his legs from moving. “So what’s got you rushing out of here so fast, huh?” he half-sarcastically commented.

  Gerard, or Gee as the few people that we both knew called him, was my older brother by a couple of years, and he was one of those people who luck never gave a break – even though he’d managed to get a crappy job just like mine (except in books while I was in music), it took a lot of persuasion on my part before they even decided to look at him. “Eh, I just don’t really feel like going home,” I melancholy shrugged.

  Gee sighed. “Mikey, you say the same thing every day – you complain for about fifteen minutes, listing all the other things that you could be doing, and then walk straight back home to watch two or three horror movies before going to sleep. Face it,” he stopped just in front of me, placing a hand on my shoulder, “we’re not meant to do anything else.”

  “That’s why I _want_ to do something else,” I exclaimed, ripping his hand away from me. “Don’t you ever wish that you could just do something _different_ for once? Do something that will make people stop and go ‘hey, I didn’t know you did that’? Well that’s what I wanna do – I want people to _notice_ me.”

  “You can barely talk to people, so how exactly do you plan on changing the world?” I knew he had me there, but I just wasn’t ready to admit defeat.

  “I don’t know,” I sighed, “I just, I just wanna... I just don’t want to spend my life doing the same thing, everyday, and then wind up wondering what the fuck happened to all the time I had.” Staring back at him, all I received was a blank look – it was clear that he didn’t understand what I was getting at. “Never mind,” I muttered to myself, “let’s just go back home.”

 

  That talk with Gee bummed me out pretty bad – if there was anyone in the world who would understand me, I thought that it would have been him. It felt pretty disappointing that he knew exactly how our lives were going to pan out.

  As expected from me, I walked home, in complete silence, and grabbed a handful of horror films before heading to my room and closing the door behind me, making it plainly obvious that I wasn’t willing to talk to anyone – not that I usually was or anything.

  I began to blank out my surroundings, trying to come to terms with the fact that I was destined to lead a mediocre life, when the faintest of knocks came from my door. “Who is it?” I called out, still slightly dazed.

  “It’s just me, sweetie,” my mom innocently replied back. “I just wondered if you wanted something to eat.” It seemed unusually early to be having dinner, but when I glanced at the clock in my room, I saw that it was nearly 10 o’ clock; once more, a whole evening had passed me by without me realising.

  “No,” I sighed, disenchanted by the path that my life was heading down, “I’m not that hungry.”

  There was a slight pause, like she was deliberating whether or not to pursue it further, but in the end decided against it. “Okay. There’s leftovers in the fridge if you change your mind.” For a split second, I waited for the door to swing open, but it stayed shut, and I listened as her footsteps echoed away into nothingness. Just like my life.


End file.
